


A Portal From You Back to Me

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Community: tfa_kink, Coping Mechanisms, Dreams and Nightmares, Multi, OT3, Scars, past Poe/OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 04:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6141078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When his nightmares are particularly brutal, Finn copes by counting Rey's freckles and Poe's battle scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Portal From You Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [This prompt](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=6037899#cmt6037899) on the TFA kink meme: _the only way Finn is able to calm himself down after a particularly nasty nightmare is by counting Rey's freckles (and/or Poe's battle scars)._

Finn sleeps between Rey and Poe, but it isn't always enough. Nightmares find him, worming their way between the warm, bracketing bodies. Tuanul is on fire. The cockpit of the TIE-fighter is on fire. His _back_ is on fire.

Finn jolts awake, biting back a cry because the scar on his back really is burning. He clenches his teeth, clenches his eyes against the memory of his dream, though there's no point, since it's always there. His fingers twist in the blanket and really, sometimes it seems like a miracle that he doesn't manage to wake his companions every single time. But Poe has always been a heavy sleeper, used to relying on BB-8 to alert him should anything happen. And Rey … Rey _goes_ somewhere when she sleeps. To a peaceful place that's neither here nor there, but is apparently where other Jedi masters - both current and long, long gone - like to gather. She tried to bring him there once, because Finn is just Force-sensitive enough to know that such a place really exists, but it felt strange, like he was intruding, and anyway, it seemed wrong for both of them to go somewhere that Poe couldn't.

Finn focuses on the present. On breathing. On the people in bed beside him. 

Nothing is on fire, he tells himself. All of that's in the past. His back isn't really on fire; it's the scar tissue pulled taut when he hunched his shoulders. That's all. That's all.

_Nothing's on fire._

_Breathe._

What happens next depends entirely on whom he happens to be facing. If it's Poe, he counts scars; if it's Rey, he counts freckles.

Poe has a lot of scars, Finn has discovered. Well. Maybe not _a lot_ compared with some of the older veterans in the Resistance, or some of the pirates and bounty hunters they've encountered, but. This is Poe: any number greater than zero is too many. And there are definitely more than zero. So, in Finn's estimation, a lot.

He knows where most of them are from: some he was there for; others Poe told him about; a few he's just guessed at, based on Poe's own stories of his past mishaps. There's a nasty-looking cicatrix on the inside of his thigh, way, way too close to his groin. Rey was horrified when she found it, but Poe only laughed. _There's a life lesson for you two,_ he told her and Finn, grinning at their aghast expressions. _If you're getting a blowjob from a Devaronian, don't make any sudden unexpected movements. Those horns are sharp, and nothing kills the mood like a nicked femoral artery._

There's the small, triangular one under his chin, which he says he got in a bar fight at Maz Kanata's place, when someone smashed a bottle in his face. All Poe will say is that he didn't start it. Maz confirmed that when Finn asked her, but she also added, with a sly twinkle in her eyes, _I'm not taking sides. Leia Organa doesn't need anyone defending her honor. But anyone who messes with that boy's looks is not welcome back in my bar._

There's the long, thin strip of pale, bumpy skin on his left calf; Poe hasn't confirmed Finn's theory - in fairness, Finn hasn't asked - but he's pretty sure it's from a speeder crash when Poe was fifteen. _To make things worse,_ Poe told Finn and Rey, _it wasn't even my speeder. It was my friend's older sister's speeder. But we were stupid. And a little drunk. And we crashed that thing and my leg was cut to ribbons._

 _I thought you could fly anything,_ Rey teased.

 _It flew!_ Poe insisted, indignant. _Until it hit the tree - which came out of nowhere - it absolutely flew!_

There are scars from other crashes, much more serious than the speeder and the tree. There's one on his side, about three inches above his hip bone, where a sheet of durasteel sliced into him when he crashed his first starfighter, a BTL-A4 Y-wing; a cluster of pockmarks on the back of his left shoulder, which he got when his cockpit caught fire during an emergency landing on Sullust; there's the one just below his right eye - at the moment half-hidden by his lashes - which Finn thinks he must have gotten when their stolen TIE-fighter crash landed on Jakku. At least, Finn doesn't remember seeing it there before the crash. Not that he spent a whole lot of time studying Poe's face on the _Finalizer_. It was only after the crash, when he thought Poe was dead, that he realized he actually cared about the man he'd been trying to rescue.

He wanted to _remember_ that face, if all he actually got to keep was the stupid jacket.

Finn touches the tip of his index finger to his own lips, then gently brushes the scar under Poe's eye. Poe's long eyelashes twitch and his brow furrows slightly, but he doesn't wake up.

Finn hates the scars, even the ones that Poe is perversely proud of. His stomach clenches every time he finds himself taking inventory. But they ground him in reality; they're proof at least that Poe survived. He has to remind himself of this, just like he has to remind himself to breathe when he wakes up from his nightmares. _You're here, you're whole. This … and this … and this … didn't kill you._

The skin around his own scar prickles. _I'm here,_ he thinks. _This didn't kill me._

_I'm here. I'm whole._

_Breathe._

 

Rey's freckles are easier on his heart, but only just. Watching her face while she sleeps is like watching the play of moonlight on water: ethereal, ephemeral. He can remember the approximate number of her freckles - always more when she's been out in the sun for long periods of time - but not their exact configuration. They should be as constant as constellations - and, in fact, when she's awake he'll sometimes make her giggle by drawing patterns on her skin with his fingertips: flowers, starships, totally made-up creatures - but they're not. He can't seem to hold them in his mind, so he has to take stock.

There's a scattering across her nose, there … and there … and there. And one tiny one right there, up by the corner of her eye, which he can only see when he's lying this close to her. If Finn were to connect them now - which he won't do because, as deep as Rey is in her Force-dream, he knows that his touch would draw her out - he thinks he'd describe the wings of a very small bird, spread in flight. She'd laugh if he told her, and maybe blush, causing that one tiny freckle to vanish, but he wouldn't mind because he likes making her laugh, even when it's at his own expense. 

Rey never makes him feel like a fool, even when he is being a little foolish. Rey makes him feel needed. _Integral._ Like she can see how he figures into the grand scheme of things. 

Finn smiles, lets his gaze travel down Rey's neck to her bare shoulder, where there's another sprinkling of freckles. There … and there … One at the vertex of her left shoulder blade and another right at the base of her neck, which he can only see when her back is turned toward him. He thinks of shells cast up on a sandy shore and left behind by the retreating wave. He thinks of the far-flung stars in the spiral arms of galaxies.

There are three freckles on the back of her forearm, in the shape of a triangle. There's a freckle under the curve of her right breast, which he was delighted to discover one sunlit afternoon, when they were all staying at Poe's father's ranch on Yavin 4. _Hidden treasure,_ Finn called it, making her splutter with laughter. Then he kissed the freckle, and her whole body trembled and then went very, very still. He had to remind himself to breathe while he watched her.

 _Breathe_.

 

He loves Rey's freckles as much as he hates Poe's scars. He supposes he needs them both in his life: one to remind him of things past, which hurt but didn't kill, the other to remind him that the future is an ever-shifting, imminently discoverable landscape. And he's a part of it. Bound to it.

 

Sometimes, if he moves too much or feels too intensely, he'll wake one or both of them. And they'll blink in confusion for a moment or two, then reach for him, Poe with his strong arms, Rey with her small, knowing hands. Because they know, they understand. _We're here. You're here. We've got you._ They don't need to say the words. 

And Finn knows. He _knows._

_Nothing is on fire._

And it's enough - not to make the nightmares go away forever, because they're etched into him, they're part of him like any marks on the skin. But it's enough to bring him back to himself and hold him there. To get him from one breath to the next.

2/29/2016

**Author's Note:**

> And I just realized this is the second story in a row where Poe is asleep for the entirety of the proceedings - though he still manages to get a few lines in. Mouthy boy. *g* Uh, I promise he'll be awake next time. Also, I'm pleased I was finally able to sneak Maz into a story. I've been wanting to, 'cause I love her and there's never enough Maz.


End file.
